Cargo may be transported to its destination using one or more of several different types of vehicles, including ships (either passenger ships or cargo ships), aircraft (either passenger aircraft or cargo aircraft), and/or trucks. Cargo may be transported while located in the interior of cargo storage areas. Cargo may further be held within cargo containers and/or loaded onto cargo pallets for transport while en route. In some cases, cargo may include hazardous, easily flammable, and/or easily combustible materials that may render transport dangerous to the cargo itself as well as to the vehicle transporting the cargo and the operators of the cargo transporting vehicle.
In other cases, cargo may be stored at cargo storage facilities in cargo storage areas, in which the cargo may be left unsupervised. In such cases, the possibility still exists that cargo stored in cargo storage facilities may also ignite or explode under certain conditions, thereby damaging other cargo, the cargo storage facility, and/or seriously injuring people that may be present in the cargo storage facility.
In many instances, cargo may be stored, either during transport or when located in a cargo storage facility, in an area separate from an operator controlling the transport vehicle or supervising the cargo storage facility. As a result, an operator or cargo storage facility supervisor may be unaware of a fire or explosion that has occurred in either a cargo container, a cargo pallet, or within the cargo storage area. In addition, there may be more than one cargo container and/or cargo pallet located in any given storage area. This may render it difficult to determine which containers and/or pallets are on fire, even if it has been determined that there is a fire occurring within a given cargo storage area. This may possibly present several problems.
Due to the nature of, for example, a cargo transport vehicle there may be a limited supply of fire suppressant available. For example, aboard a cargo transport aircraft, the weight of any fire suppressant may limit the amount of fire suppressant that may be carried aboard the aircraft for suppressing fires. Therefore, it may be desired to limit the amount of fire suppressant used to extinguish a fire in order to reduce the weight carried by the aircraft by focusing any release of fire suppressant on the particular area in need of fire suppressant rather than throughout the entire cargo area. Furthermore, the fire suppressant itself may be harmful to some types of cargo. Therefore, it may be desirable to limit the distribution of fire suppressant to the location in need of fire suppression so as to limit the spoilage of cargo not in need of fire suppressant. As a result, it may be desirable to provide a fire detection system that can determine the approximate location of a fire so that an appropriate amount of fire suppressant can be directed to the location experiencing the fire.
One potential problem found in cargo areas experiencing a fire is that the cargo is often located remotely from cargo vehicle operators or cargo storage facility supervisors (e.g., the cargo may be located in an unoccupied and/or difficult to access portion of the vehicle or cargo storage facility). This may render it more difficult to provide fire suppressant to an area experiencing a fire in a timely manner. Since it is generally more difficult to extinguish or suppress a fire once it has spread over a large area, it may be desirable to render it possible to provide fire suppressant remotely and in a timely manner.
One example of a cargo transportation vehicle having an operator or operators located relatively remotely from the cargo is an aircraft. The majority of cargo carried by modern aircraft is transported in cargo containers or on cargo pallets. These containers are generally referred generically as Unit Load Devices (“ULDs”). Some ULDs may be constructed of high-strength aircraft grade aluminum alloy, sometimes with sides partially constructed from LEXAN. For safety considerations, ULDs must often mate with an aircraft cargo locking system in order to restrain the cargo containers under various flight, ground load, and/or emergency conditions. Under federal air regulations, ULDs are considered aircraft appliances, are Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) certified for a specific type of aircraft, and are typically manufactured to specifications contained in National Aerospace Standard (NAS) 3610.
An example of a very commonly used industry ULD is the “SAA” designated container, which measures about 88 inches wide by about 125 inches long with an arched roof about 82 inches high. Another example of a ULD is the “AMJ” designated container, which measures about 96 inches wide by about 125 inches long with a maximum height of about 96 inches. For pallets, two typical base dimensions are about 88 inches wide by about 125 inches long and about 96 inches wide by about 125 inches long, although other sizes are also available. Cargo loads on pallets are sometimes stacked and then netted to the pallet using cargo nets having fittings that engage seat track type rails located around the pallet's perimeter.
It may be desirable to provide fire detection and/or suppression systems located in cargo areas that may be relatively transparent to cargo handlers (i.e., handlers that load and/or unload cargo into cargo areas), so that there is no requirement for either specific action or involvement by them so that, for example, cargo may be rapidly loaded into and unloaded from the cargo area.
Using a cargo aircraft as an example, while some main deck cargo areas may be conventionally equipped with fire extinguishing bottles intended for manual operation, very few cargo containers and virtually no cargo pallets located on cargo aircraft are accessible to flight crews during a flight, thereby rendering it difficult to manually extinguish a fire located in an aircraft cargo area using fire extinguishing bottles. If, for example, one or more of the cargo containers or cargo pallets contains flammable material and the temperature rises too high and/or the flammable material is otherwise ignited, a fire could start in the cargo container or on the cargo pallet and spread to other cargo containers and/or cargo pallets within the cargo area. Unless someone is in the cargo area at the time the cargo ignites, which is unlikely at least for the reasons outlined above, such a fire could remain undetected and/or inaccessible to the flight crew. If undetected or inaccessible, the fire could spread to other cargo containers and/or cargo pallets, thereby endangering the safety of the flight crew and the cargo aircraft. The same possibility of spreading exists for other cargo vehicles and cargo storage facilities.
As an example, shorter range cargo aircraft operating over land are typically within about 15 minutes or less flying time of suitable airfields for performing an emergency landing should an emergency such as, for example, a cargo fire, occur. Currently, the FAA has certified smoke detectors for detecting fires on board aircraft, although smoke detectors may present some limitations. Cargo aircraft may be equipped with main deck smoke curtains and/or solid bulkheads, for example, which may provide a flight crew with an extended cockpit smoke free period in case of fire in an aircraft cargo area. Under such circumstances, there may be a relatively low probability of a cargo aircraft loss due to a cargo fire. Nevertheless, in such situations, a fire detection system is desirable for providing early detection, thereby allowing sufficient time to divert the cargo aircraft to an airfield for performing an emergency landing. Furthermore, once the aircraft has landed, it is still desirable for ground fire-fighting personnel to be able to extinguish the fire by locating the fire and conveying fire suppressant material to it.
In contrast to flights over land, a different situation may occur on international flights. Many such flights may spend a relatively large duration of time over oceans or other large bodies of water, and an aircraft could be as many as three or more hours flying time from landfall. Under such circumstances, if a cargo fire should occur, the capability to extinguish or at least suppress the cargo fire for an extended period of time until a suitable airfield for performing an emergency landing can be reached may be essential for survival of the flight crew and the aircraft as well as the cargo. Therefore, both a fire detection system for quickly detecting a fire and an on-board fire suppression system for suppressing or extinguishing the fire may be desirable.
The problem of detecting and/or suppressing fires is not limited to the cargo transportation industry, however. A problem may arise, for example, wherever cargo and/or other articles are stored in a location that is remote from a person supervising the cargo or other articles, such as, for example, a cargo storage facility. Thus, in a broad variety of situations, it may be desirable to remotely detect and/or remotely suppress a fire in its initial stages before it can grow out of control.
One subject of the invention may be to provide a system configured to detect a fire or an unacceptably high temperature in a location remote from a person overseeing the location, such as a cargo storage facility supervisor or an aircraft flight crew member.
Another subject of the invention may be to provide a system configured to provide an alert based on detection of a fire or an unacceptably high temperature in a location remote from a person overseeing the location, such as a cargo storage facility supervisor or an aircraft flight crew member.
Yet another subject of the invention may be to provide a system configured to identify a particular area, pallet, and/or container experiencing a fire or an unacceptably high temperature.
Still another subject of the invention may be to provide a system for suppressing a fire and/or cooling an area, pallet, and/or container identified as experiencing a fire or an unacceptably high temperature.